Statistics and the Environment
Number of Conferences on the Horizon
Devin Johnson, Statistics and the Environment Section Publications Chair
T
he section’s annual open business sessions include fire spread modeling; pol-
meeting/mixer will be held Monday, lution source apportionment; modeling
August 4, at 6:00 p.m. during JSM mountain pine beetle spread; marine ecology;
in Denver. Please join us to catch up with old spatio-temporal models for air quality and
friends and meet some new. Food and drinks epidemiology; spatial-temporal analysis of
will be provided, along with some surprises. environmental health data; monitoring, mod-
There is also a call for invited session eling, and managing environmental systems;
proposals for the ENAR 2009 Spring ecological sampling; communicating risk and
Meeting, to be held March 15–18, 2009, uncertainty; landscape level risk; spatial mod-
in San Antonio, Texas. Send session top- eling; change point methods for environmen-
ics, a list of potential speakers, and contact tal series; changes in environmental data;
information to Lance Waller at lwaller@ applications of computer models; modeling sph.emory.edu by June 13, 2008. Also, don’t of covariates in environmental studies; eco-
forget that JSM 2009 will arrive before you logical modeling; fisheries monitoring issues;
Kelowna, Canada
know it, so begin thinking of topics for next sustainability and point processes; and recent
A one-day course about modeling envi-
year’s invited sessions. developments in forest sampling.
ronmental extremes will be given June 8.
The president’s invited lecture, “The
There also will be a best student paper com-
TIES 2008
Role of Statisticians in International Science
petition and best poster award. For more
The 19th annual conference of the Policy,” will be given by Peter Guttorp,
information, visit http://people.ok.ubc.ca/
International Environmetrics Society (TIES) while the J. Stuart Hunter Lecture, “Change
zhrdlick/ties08/intro.htm or contact confer-
will be held in Kelowna, British Columbia, Point Analysis of Extreme Values,” will be
ence cochairs David Brillinger and Sylvia
Canada, June 8–13, 2008. Topics for invited given by Jef Teugels.
Esterby at TIES2008@ubc.ca. ■
Statistical Education
Isolated Statisticians To Meet in Denver
Ann Cannon, Cornell College
A
re you an academic statistician who is more or less isolated from While we usually have between 30 and 40 people attend the meet-
other statisticians? If so, you are not alone. Many of us have ing at JSM, many more participate via our electronic mail list (there
banded together to form a group we call the Isolated Statisticians are currently 213 members). This list is by invitation only (to keep the
(Isostat, for short). We all have different areas of expertise, and this spam down), but all it takes is an email to Jeff Witmer (Jeff.Witmer@
group can play the role of the “statistician down the hall” that we don’t oberlin.edu) at Oberlin College (our list maintainer and original leader
have in our departments. from 1991–1996) with an explanation of how you are an isolated
Currently led by Shonda Kuiper (one of two statisticians at statistician to get added to the list. This list is not a burden to the
Grinnell College), the Isostat group meets yearly at JSM (this year inbox (sometimes there will be weeks with no email; other times there
will be our 18th meeting). This gathering, typically on Sunday from might be five messages in one day), but it is helpful for all kinds
7–9, serves several purposes. First and foremost, it is a time to net- of support. We have had discussions ranging from which textbook
work with others who face similar challenges. We have deliberately people prefer for a particular course and how to better explain a par-
chosen a time early in the week so the gathering can serve as a time to ticular topic to how to better communicate with our math colleagues
meet new people and renew longer-standing friendships, with plen- and help on an analysis that came to us through consulting.
ty of time left in the week for follow-up conversations. Second, this So, to all the isolated academic statisticians out there: If you’ve
is our annual chance to have group discussions about topics relevant been coming to our meetings, I look forward to seeing you in
to our unique situation. Many of us refer to this as our “department Denver. If this is the first you’ve heard of us, check out our web site at
meeting.” Previous agendas have included topics such as how to www.isostat.org and join us Sunday in Denver (check the program
get tenured in a math (or other nonstatistics) department, what for location). If you are not coming to Denver or are unable to come
statistics courses are being offered at our institutions, and managing Sunday night, we still encourage you to send Witmer an email to join
statistical consulting. our list. ■
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